Our research
Research at the Artistic Faculty covers artistic and pedagogical and socially relevant subjects. There are also joint faculty projects and investments in research and publication platforms. The faculty is also part of several interdisciplinary research centers, in collaboration with other faculties at the University of Gothenburg.
Age Cap, Centre for Ageing and Health
Age Cap, Centre for Ageing and Health perform multidisciplinary research for capable ageing.
Within the Artistic Faculty
The Artistic Faculty runs the research project ‘The Contribution of Co-Created Art to Social Engagement and Sustainable Living Environment’ funded by Formas:
The aim of the project is to evaluate the importance of artistic design in a nursing home for elderly people related to social engagement and sustainable living environments.
Do you want to get involved in Age Cap?
Contact: Maja Gunn, HDK-Valand
GPS400: Centre for Collaborative Visual Research
Analyses and presents how visual source materials have been used historically and how they can be used today and, in the future, as credible sources, analytical tools and as culturally valuable works.
Within the Artistic Faculty
The Artistic Faculty participates in the steering group, research and planning and implementation of an international research conference in 2022. The research project Gothenburg through the Ages (2019-2023) studied the importance and development of film and photography as a form of knowledge for the history of Gothenburg. The project, which was part of the celebration of Gothenburg 400 Year, resulted in the exhibitions Zoomed In (2021) and Axel and Arne Svensson: Two Generations of Gothenburg Images 1898-1960 (2023), as well as games to develop the usage of cultural history archives and reach new groups.
The research project Interwar Lens Media Cultures 1919-1939 (2017-2022) explored the lens media cultures of the interwar period and resulted, among other things, in the exhibition The New Eye: The Interwar Era through the Lens (2021).
In an ongoing project Moment: Lens-based Media Evidence and Aesthetics in Sweden, 1939–1969, researchers are exploring relationships between lens media and society, with themes such as consensus and conflict.
Do you want to get involved in GPS400?
Contact: Niclas Östlind, HDK-Valand
The Centre on Global Migration, CGM
The Centre on Global Migration (CGM) is a platform for interdisciplinary research on migration and an interface between researchers, civil society and private and public actors .
Within the Artistic Faculty
The Artistic Faculty participates in the Centre's international seminars where artists, designers and migration researchers share insights on art and migration. Among other things, the Artistic Faculty has organised several public workshops and co-funded a postdoc position together with Global Studies.
The interdisciplinary research project Unpacking the contention between openness and security in the Nordic region (2021-2027 project leader Elena Raviola, HDK-Valand) critically examines the emergence of new methods and technologies for surveillance and control in the Nordic countries.
The research project PLACED: Accommodating refugees and asylum seekers and the spatial production of hospitality and otherness (Formas 2020-2023) studies how political ideologies are given spatial form and thus regulate the space of movement and subjectivity of refugees and asylum seekers.
Do you want to get involved in the Centre on Global Migration?
Contact: Erling Björgvinsson, HDK-Valand
Centre for Critical Heritage Studies, CCHS
The Centre is devoted to critical and interdisciplinary studies of the many layers of cultural heritage as a material, intangible, emotional and intellectual field.
Within the Artistic Faculty
The Artistic Faculty is involved in CCHS through interdisciplinary and collaborative research projects. The Artistic Faculty contributes with artistic perspectives and knowledge about cultural heritage and cultural heritage studies.
In collaboration with the Museum of Gothenburg, Lilla Änggården with its archives are made available to researchers and students and contribute to research and doctoral projects.
Current: In the conference Art for the Community: Artworks Commissioned for Public Institutions, 1945-1989, in Ljubljana, Slovenia, autumn 2024, Gertrud Olsson presented ‘The Valhalla Public Baths in Gothenburg’ with a focus on an endangered and socially significant cultural heritage in Gothenburg.
Do you want to get involved in CCHS?
Contacts: Maria Bania, Academy of Music and Drama, Gertrud Olsson, HDK-Valand
Centre for Tourism, CFT
The Centre for Tourism (CFT) is an interdisciplinary collaboration platform with the mission to initiate, develop, and support research within the tourism field.
Within the Artistic Faculty
The Artistic Faculty has been active in the Centre since 2012, in areas such as community-based tourism (CBT), ecotourism and diversity tourism. Here, design methods are building on local participatory processes, research on knowledge tourism as well as crafts and cultural heritage. Critical artistic perspectives and theories contribute especially to research on social justice and sustainability in tourism.
In the project The Role of Tourism in Multicultural Societies (TiMS) 2018-2024, with Helena Kraff as one of four main researchers, a short film explaining the concept of diversity tourism was produced. The project was presented at the Cultural Heritage Forum, 21st of Nov in Folkets hus Hammarkullen, organised by the Cultural Heritage Academy.
Publication: Tyrone Martinsson (2022): ‘Extended ways of experiencing climate change: From photography to virtual reality in Svalbard’ in Jernsand et al (ed) Tourism, Knowledge and Learning.
Do you want to get involved in CFT?
Contact: Helena Kraff, HDK-Valand
Swedish Mariculture Research Centre, SWEMARC
SWEMARC's goal is to increase the sustainability of farming food from the ocean through interdisciplinary and socially engaging research.
Within the Artistic Faculty
In SWEMARC, the Artistic Faculty contributes with participatory design methods that aim to create spaces for collaboration and knowledge about sustainable processes.
Some examples:
In the workshop Make your own algae salt, a molded mortar and salt is used as gathering materials to feel, taste, talk and take home. The method has been used at the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon, science festivals, the Jubilee Days in Gothenburg and in schools.
In collaboration with the City of Gothenburg and Omställningslabbet, HDK-Valand contributed with a mobile outdoor kitchen to the blue community garden in Frihamnen, which received the New European Bauhaus Prize in the category Reconnecting with Nature, 2024.
SMAK - Smart Food from Farm to Kitchen: In collaboration with an eighth-grade class at Hisingen, researchers are building an aquaponic system where fish and vegetables are grown together.
In the project Blue Food - Centre for future seafood, HDK-Valand is involved in the development of a national seafood campaign.
Do you want to get involved in SWEMARC?
Contact: Karl-Johan Skogh, HDK-Valand
A selection of our research projects
- The Sugar Games. New perspectives on Gothenburg's colonial history through the … (External link)
- Protocols of Killings: 1965, distance, and the ethics of future warfare (External link)
- Rhetorical and Romantic affective strategies in musical performance (External link)
- Praise instead of growth in music education for teachers in training (External link)
- Autistic writing in a neuromixed space: reclaiming, reloading another mother to… (External link)
- PLACED: Accommodating refugees and asylum seekers and the spatial production of… (External link)
